Your teeth make the perfect tools to grind up and tear into food. But while you can usually chew without issue, sometimes your strong teeth can break due to an awkward bite.
A chip, crack, or fracture in your tooth can disrupt your beautiful smile, but it also makes a vulnerable area in your dental structure that increases your risk of infections, tooth decay, and other dental dangers. You will need to see a dentist for urgent restoration of the tooth in the wake of this dental injury.
Good oral hygiene and preventive dental care can keep your teeth strong enough to avoid tooth breakage. But some foods pose a greater risk of cracking a tooth than others. You can better protect your smile when you know which foods can hurt your dental structure, so read on to find four examples of foods that might break a tooth.
Popcorn
Salty and buttery popcorn makes for an ideal snack to enjoy while watching a movie at home or at a movie theater. The fluffy, white food comes from heating corn kernels in oil or butter until they implode and reveal the light, snackable inside.
But the fluffy snack can hide hard unpopped kernels that linger at the bottom of your bowl. If you accidentally bite into one of these kernels, you could injure your tooth. Pay attention while you eat popcorn so that you can avoid this dental injury.
Bagels
Many people enjoy spreading cream cheese on or building a sandwich using bagels. But they may not realize that bagels and other hard breads have a dense texture that exerts more pressure on their teeth when they eat them. If they are not careful, they could crack a tooth while consuming a bagel.
A crack or chip in a tooth can deepen and worsen without prompt treatment from a dentist. So make sure you take measures to avoid this tooth breakage and seek dental attention if the injury does occur.
Hard Candy
Hard candy is a sweet treat formed from boiled sugar that solidifies when it cools. Then you can suck on the candy until it dissolves. Despite cautions against it, many people feel tempted to bite down on hard candy before it dissolves. Biting a hard item like this can seriously hurt your teeth.
You may want to avoid hard candy if you cannot resist the urge to bite it. But if you suspect you hurt a tooth from biting this candy, do not delay calling your dentist. They may need to offer restorative solutions like dental crowns to amend the damage.
Corn on the Cob
Corn naturally grows on a cob attached to a stalk. So it makes sense to want to eat corn directly from this cob. But your teeth are not designed to bite into a hard corn cob without issue, and you could cause a dental injury this way.
To protect your dental structure, you should consume corn off of its cob whenever you can. Though dentists can help you repair broken teeth, you should preserve your natural smile for as long as you can. This means reducing your risk of dental injuries by paying attention to your diet.